My Name Is Lenny https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2024521/

Excellent low budget movie about Lenny McLean, who fought his demons and alchoholism to become Britains greatest unlicenced boxer.
Fantastic performance by Josh Helman as Lenny.

I'll have to watch this. I met him and to be honest he was a complete **nt.

He bought an average pub near where I lived in East London, had the exterior painted black all over and renamed it The Guvnor's. It quickly became the sort place you stayed for half a pint only because the atmosphere was so intimidating.

He also had a reputation as being someone people went to when they wanted an iron bar put into someone's face.

A thoroughly unpleasant piece of work.

Nice article on Night of the Living Dead:

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/0...-film-of-1968/

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Oscars have decided NOT to have an award for "Popular Films" now. Thank god.

What was going to be the criteria for that anyway? The movie had to make at least $x at the box office? Or were they just going to arbitrarily pick 10 movies that were popular but not good enough to get any of the other awards (i.e. Marvel/Star Wars movies?)

most beautiful film ive ever seen.
shot entirely with natural light.

absolutely love the unreliable narrator n agree don't find it slow or drags at all.

and while I haven't done psychedelics since college i did watch it while coming down after a peak many times and was absolutely fantastic film to watch while tripping.

in fact cant think of a filmmaker who's films are better films to watch while tripping, except lolita which is a little too disturbing n likely to cause a bad trip.

Two film reviews from the first day of TIFF.

Let me fall

Icelandic film about a girl who becomes addicted to Ritalin told in sequences which flashes between her life as a teenager and her life as an adult a couple of decades later. There’s no real surprises in her descent to becoming a full blown junkie, but this doesn’t make the events of the film any less brutal and adds a sense of helplessness for the main character and the people around her. This isn’t just a film about addiction but about the relationships she has with her friends, her family and her lesbian lover. The looks of horror, sadness and guilt on the faces of these people when they meet the main character in adulthood are haunting.

A powerful and profoundly depressing film to say the least.

El angel

Based on the true story of a young, attractive Argentinian thief turned serial killer in the 1970s. We exist in Carlito’s world as he steals and kills without any thoughts to the consequences. Carlitos doesn’t care about his victims and neither do we. The carnage is played for laughs rather than drama and the result doesn’t quite work. It’s an entertaining film all about mood and aesthetic. As with Let me fall there’s a homosexual relationship at the films centre between Carlito and his partner which isn’t sentamentalized and feels true to the time and place of the story.

Table 19

This is a one-location kinda movie, written by the Duplass Brothers and starring Anna Kendrick, Craig Robinson, Stephen Merchant, that Indian kid from Grand Budapest Hotel, one of Kuert Russell's kids, and Lisa Kudrow. It's about a group of misfits stuck at the "bad" table at a wedding, furthest from the wedding party.

I liked it quite a bit, even though the critics lambasted it. I thought it was funny and sweet and different.

Filmstruck has a great lineup, including The Shop Around the Corner and many other Lubitch films. You can also see El Topo, a nice curiousity.

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What would Lubitch do?

Protip: Avoid Clockwork Orange and Straw Dogs while tripping.

He wouldn't have made El Topo.

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Bullitt (1968)

One of the classic gritty cop chasing his man with requisite car chase movies.


Joy (2015)
I liked this movie more than I thought. Jennifer Lawrence gives a great performance. The supporting cast and the general atmosphere is a bit quirky but it still felt grounded like there were real stakes throughout the whole movie.

First two TIFF movies down.

Out of Blue - One of the worst films I've ever seen. Patricia Clarkson plays an alcoholic cop investigating the murder of an astrophysicist. This is a mess of every drunk cop cliche while trying to be a sci-fi mystery written by someone who listened to one Joe Rogan podcast and thinks they are Neil Degrasse Tyson now. Somehow the dialogue is written even more terribly than the story. There were quite a few walk outs and lots of people laughing at every terrible line or ridiculous plot point happened. Just a disaster all around. 1/10

Beautiful Boy - Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet play a father and son struggling through the son's drug addiction. It's a well made and well acted film. Chalamet is continuing to prove that he's going to be one of the great actors of this generation. But overall I don't think the film does anything particularly groundbreaking with the addiction story that we haven't seen before. I did really enjoy a lot of the music choices. It's a solidly good movie in every facet but falls short of being great. 7/10

Not to be confused with the vastly underrated and criminally neglected film of the same name by Dennis Hopper.

Into the blue with Jessica Alba in a bikini for 2 hours was much better.

Sometimes the spin-off really is better than the original, though it's hard to figure out if this was meant to be a prequel or sequel

Belgian director, picking up alot of buzz here.
Im seeing it for Steve Carell though

i actually was fine with a clockwork orange.
the two worst by far were lolita and requiem for a dream.

I loved Clockwork Orange, but kept finding it hilarious. Pretty soon the surrounding people were laughing along with me, and this greatly upset a guy a few rows in front of us. He started yelling at us and tried to get us thrown out. He ended up being ejected. There's a lot more to this story -- it was a good time -- however I've laid off the psychedelics for the last 40 or so years.

<3 rbk
<3 phat mack

The Front Runner - Jason Reitman’s new movie about Gary Hart’s failed Presidential campaign in 88. Its a good ensemble and a decent movie. It’s a movie that tries to ask a lot of questions without taking a stance. What counts as news? What responsibilities do journalists have to report gossip? What do we deserve to know about the lives of those running for office? But is a movie that uses a butter knife to tackle these issues enough today? Not really. 5/10

Halloween - I really enjoyed this. It’s a direct sequel to the original that throws out the continuity to the rest of the Halloween sequels. Its co-written by Danny McBride so it plays a bit more campy in parts but I enjoyed that. The score is fantastic! A couple great deaths and the final sequence is A+. The story is fairly thin and it’ll be picked apart but really enjoyable theatre experience. 7/10

Widows - I don’t think I’ll stop raving about this movie for the rest of the year. This is a blockbuster crime movie by Steve ****ing McQueen. He managed to keep his aesthetic from Shame/Hunger in the film but with an all-star cast and a great screenplay written by Gillian Flynn. Viola Davis and Daniel Kaluuya especially should get all the awards. Every piece of this film was brilliant. See it immediately. 10/10

I Kill Giants https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4547194/

A young girl faces fear and denial by escaping into a fantasy world where she
has to defend her town agains evil giants.
Despite the mediocre reviews, I really liked this movie and Madison Wolfe gives a solid performance in the lead role.

The Dinner https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3203620/

Tense drama about two families that meet for dinner to discuss how to deal with their two sons who commited a violent crime.
Steve Coogan was excellent as the father of one of the kids, his best role so far imo, but
I thought the ending was a bit abrupt and unsatisfying.
Well worth a watch though.

Can't wait to see both of these

Enjoying the TIFF reviews mflip.

I missed the boat on good tix and was very close to buying $45 tickets for Out of Blue. You definitely put my mind at ease there.